It was not my fault!

Earlier today a beautiful young woman came up to the window and started with a simple statement. " I have a long list" followed by a look of possibly doubting whether I could handle her complex order which would soon be given to me. Immediately I felt challenged. Do I do the smart thing by listening to her order, stop her and get what I can handle, and then come back and finish with the rest of her order, or do I be a man and challenge her to possibly create an order in which I can not handle. I chose the second option figuring one of two things will happen.
I'll either impress her with my willingness and ability to take care of her in a very efficient matter or I'll come close and we can both laugh at my ineptitude. After she told me her order I hurried off on my mission. Remembering everything, I darted back with the same expression my cat used to give me every time he caught a mouse. One by one I gave her all eight items feeling pretty damn proud of myself. All of a sudden I looked in my hand and I was holding the wrong gum. NO WAY!!! I swore I picked up the right one, I knew the flavor, looked at the pack, and somehow picked up the wrong one. I sat in temporary disbelief. What happened. After thinking about it for way too long I came up with only two possible solutions. First of all, I got caught up in the smile, personality, and charm of the girl woman giving the order. Perhaps I let my mind take over for one half second just long enough to take my eyes off the package as I picked it up. As my brain drifted back to her, my hand must of shifted three inches, just enough to pick up the wrong gum. The other possibility is similar yet probably not the case. I might have subconsciously been enticed to pick up the prettier pink package associating it with the female customer I was helping. I know corporations pay millions of dollars to study this exact instance, and would probably give someone a real nice raise for "mentally brainwashing" me into choosing their new package. None the less I had to go back and retrieve the correct(less Exciting) pack of gum so as to appease her. All in all I failed to properly carry out my mission
(typical sign of the average male), while hopefully providing her with a momentary sense of happiness. However, I will end this with one last prolific male trait and that would be to deny responsibility for my actions. Had this been some middle school teenager or male construction worker, I would have gotten the order correct and quickly moved on to the next customer. Even though I'm sure you will never read this, I hope you receieve satisfaction knowing you caused me to psychoanalyze my actions all over a damn pack of gum!!!!!!

Not so quick thoughts!!!

In no particular order, I just wanted to share a few thoughts about what I am thankful for and what I am not thankful for. First of all, more than anything in this world I am thankful that I have parents who cared about me from day one. They both in their own ways taught me so much about life and what it is about. My parents are exactly opposite in every way. Whatever area was one's weakness the other made up for it. Everyday I am thankful for that. I am thankful I have a beautiful daughter to whom I can try my hardest to teach as much about this world as possible. I am thankful that I can remain friends with my ex-wife and most important the mother of my child. I am thankful that while my body is slowing down I am able to still stay in pretty good shape. I am thankful that the world is filled with good people, and I have enough energy to search them out.
I am not thankful for the following. On any given day one person can truly mess up the lives of many others, and not receive any punishment at all. I am not thankful for the public school systems lack of money, resources, and ability to create a good learning environment for all who attend. I am not thankful for lack of respect shown by a lot of todays youth. I am not thankful for the fact that the world revolves around money. I am not thankful for the fact that I only type about 15 words a minute making this a lot slower than it should be.
One last thought I am truly thankful that it is much easier to create a list of what I am thankful for than to create a list of what I am not thankful for.

Practice what you Preach!!!

Earlier today while at work, a customer accidentally knocked over my lighter display cases. ALL THREE OF THEM. This left me with a huge pile of completely mixed up lighters, two of the three cases were broken, numerous lighters were ruined and I had to work around this mess until I got a chance to clean this up. I know it was an accident but it was the prelude to this that really made matters worse. As I am helping a lady in the drive-thru window he is telling me a dirty joke out loud. I am trying to help the lady, not sure if she can hear him or not. " If a woman with big boobs works at Hooters, where does a man with a big @#$% work?... I HOP" he yells loudly while hitting my display with his uncontrolled reactions to his gut busting joke. He apologizes repeatedly while the lady outside asks me if I'm okay. "Physically I'm okay" I tell her."however mentally I just felt another chink in my cranial armor." She doesn't realize what happened and probably left confused by my comment. I turn around finish my transaction with him and try to convince him all is good, just let me clean up the mess and get on with my work. He insists on offering to help. I tell him it's too crowded back here and would be easier just to do it myself. He starts in on another joke, I'm not paying attention and he asks me if that one was funny. I politely beg him to leave as I really just want to clean up this mess and get on with everything. He finally leaves me alone to take care of his mess. As I sit on the floor all alone, I finally start to laugh. I'm thinking I'm 36 years old sitting on a floor cleaning up after grown men in a goddamn convenience store. Now this is funny. Three years of college and an incredible set of genes I've been given and this is my life. I often look in the mirror and ask myself why and it's almost always the same answer. It's better to experience all walks of life than to waste away in a cubicle designing the latest and greatest making someone lots of money at my own expense. Anyway I digress. The main reason I wrote about this is because when I got home my daughter was in a horrible mood. The more I dug into it, the more foul she became. I had to understand what was bothering her as I would never be able to help if I didn't know what the problem was. Then it clicked. Just leave her alone and let her take care of her own problem. Ten minutes later we were playing boggle and yahtzee and all was good. It sure is amazing how things work out this way. Sometimes it's best just to leave someone alone and let them take care of themselves....

Thank you Clear Creek Choir!!!

Last night I went to my daughters Choir performance. I don't understand why I get so emotional inside while watching such a simplistic performance. The array of styles and talent was all over the board. Some kids were dressed as if they were hanging out at the mall, while the child right next to them looked as if they were going to a wedding or some major event. I understand generally its how the parent wish for them to be dressed, but I don't grasp why they would allow it considering how everyone else was dressed. I hoped one of the more ragged kids would just stand out with an amazing voice and leave all us parents in total bewilderment.
Unfortunately the correlation between appearance and peformance are usually hand in hand at this age. By high school identitys start forming while the study habits and desire to perform well are already etched into the childs heart. I appreciate all levels of talent as long as I know the child tried their hardest. It's the kids that don't try or care who really upset me. To be given the resources to succeed in life and just throw them away is so sad. It's only later in life that these kids will understand this concept. Watching sixty kids in the same age group at the same time really shows the difference in upbringing and society as a whole. Some care some don't, but most people seem to still go through the motions. I just wanted to say as a whole the Clear Creek Choir performed very well and had a lot of talent representing them.

Mixed Emotions!

Sometimes we have events in life in which we have no idea how to take them. Sometimes your emotions stray from the original feelings after you analyze them for a little bit. Last night my 12 year old daughter was reading my blog titled dumb and dumber. I usually write these late at night and don't spend much time proofreading them. As we read this together, I laughed at how I accidentally spelled different wrong(diiferent). This was caused only because I wasn't paying attention while I typed. As I told her why I was laughing she pointed out two other grammatical
errors I had previously made. At first I was proud that she caught mistakes that I had missed twice. As I thought a little more I realized she would not of pointed them out unless I had made that comment. Was she afraid of correcting her father(God I hope not), there is nothing more important than being able to communicate and help each other whenever we can. The other thought that bothered me was the fact that she is growing up way too fast. I still remember helping teach her to read, now she is correcting my mistakes. Just in case anyone hasn't heard this a thousand times, please spend more time with your children, it is absolutely amazing how fast things change. I love watching her grow, but I hate seeing her childhood slowly vanish. Certain things in life you can never get back.

It's easier not to care!

One of the few things I truly hate about owning my store, is allowing myself to care so much about people and take these feelings so seriously. I'm sure I'm about to sound like a whining little girl, but fortunately I gave up caring what others think about me. I know I'm different. I always have been and I always will be. Back to the point. I often become close with people who come in for a pack of smokes and usually nothing else. In my mind I often feel they would not come in and share there life with me if that was all they truly wanted. I'll always hear them out, offer advice, and try to do whatever I can to hopefully make their life a little better. What kills me is when they "disappear on me, leaving me to wonder what happened. Did they find a cheaper store? Did I offend them with something I said? Did I cross the proverbial line? Perhaps something happened to them and I'll never know until I read it in the paper. In this business I understand that people come and people go. My problem is in my mind I feel like perhaps I am making their life better and for that reason they should want to be in my life. I know this sound selfish and probably downright naive but it's a thought I hang on to for the sake of my sanity. I've already accepted the fact that life isn't always going to be rosy, I just have to learn that many a times when you think you are making a difference in others life, they may not see it or may not care either way. I'll never stop trying because the feeling received when someone acknowledges this is worth more than anything else you can imagine. I just wanted to thank two people who did a great job this week of making me feel like what I do really matters.
THANK YOU LARRY AND THANK YOU MELANIE. While I know neither of you read this, in my own little fantasy world you are hearing this one way or another.

Dumb and Dumber

I'll start with a customer who bought a can of Grizzly chew, which had just gone up 20 cents a can the day earlier. He asked me why the can went up and I explained the manufacturer raised the price 20 cents a can to me, so I raised the can 20 cents to the customer. His response, " I don't get it." Cut and dry to me however he was very concerned that this was not right. I often wonder if there was anything I could of told him to explain the price increase that he would of accepted. However if he can't grasp that concept I'm sure anything I said would of generated the same response. I wanted to explain economics to him, or perhaps enlighten him to the fact that occasionally prices go up in life, but I just froze in amazement to his answer. All I could think of was how he managed to correctly answer enough questions to get a drivers license. I'm constantly wondering how certain people make it so far in life while not being able to grasp these concepts. However My next thought which is rarely correct is perhaps his brain doesn't function the way most peoples do. Maybe he he can look at a jar of marbles and quickly compute how many are in there based on the size of the marble and the depth of the jar. Perhaps he can throw a baseball 98 miles per hour with dead on accuracy, and never had to learn anything else.
All I know for sure is somehow these people seem to find me wherever I go. I truly enjoy these moments in life, because they remind me how different we all are. I'm sure there is someone in this world writing about how they came across someone who has been working at convenience stores his whole adult life and actually enjoys going to work each day. We all know this world is full of idiots. We only realize it when we understand that deep down inside we are one of them.

What a RIP OFF!!!!

I was just thinking today about how far my money used to go. When I was a kid I would go down to the 7-11 and buy a big wheel ice cream sandwich, a pack of baseball cards, one pack of donuts, and play a game of Charlie's Angels pinball, all for one dollar. Later on I worked delivering pizzas and waiting tables and always had enough to keep my gas tank on full, and have plenty left over for running around money. This was just from my tips. In college I was able to buy cases of Jacque Scotts wine coolers for $6 each or 25cents a bottle. For that kind of money you almost have to get drunk. I remember buying a dozen donut holes for a dollar before class started. You never realize what a great deal something is until you lose it and are forced to pay something else. Sometimes you just cross a threshold where the pleasure is worth up to a certain amount but not any more. To me I had the pleasure of growing up reading the Los Angeles Times every day. I never realized what I was missing until I had only the Oregonian to read. No offense, but this is the most pathetic attempt at a newspaper I have ever seen. I actually get excited going to the airport on the odd chance someone might have left a paper from any other city lying around. Anyway I digress from the main point. I have suffered with the Oregonian for over 13 years. At 35 cents a paper I don't have a true right to complain. However at the new rate of 50 cents I have to tell you this paper absolutely SUCKS in every way, shape, and form......